


up in the brokilon boughs

by WingedQuill



Series: Into the Jaskierverse [20]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Cursed Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Druid Geralt, Druid Jaskier, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Incest Mention, Past Child Abuse, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Protective Siblings, Shapeshifter Jaskier | Dandelion, Sibling Love, Siblings, just misunderstandings between universes, very VERY brief and there isn't any actual incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27291958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedQuill/pseuds/WingedQuill
Summary: Jaskier has three goals.1) Get his brother, Geralt, safely through Brokilon forest, and see that his curse is broken.2) Rescue his niece from their abusive shithead mother who enacted the curse in the first place.3) Kill said mother.But when an alternate-universe version of his brother and niece—from a world where they have no familial ties to him whatsoever—come crashing into Brokilon one early winter morning, his goals get ever-so-slightly derailed. Now he has only one. Keep Geralt—his Geralt—safe.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Into the Jaskierverse [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895545
Comments: 10
Kudos: 157





	up in the brokilon boughs

**Author's Note:**

> Me: Ah, I can definitely finish "in a field of buttercups" by my Into the Jaskierverse posting date, so that all the readers know what's going on. 
> 
> Also me: Did not do that.
> 
> Hopefully, this should still be understandable if you've read the other fics in my children of flowers and leaves series (and even if you haven't!) It's slightly ahead of where that series is now, but all the pieces should be familiar. Unlike some of the other ItJ fics, this one _will_ be canon for the children of flower and leaves series, set sometime between "in a field of buttercups" and the next work in the series.
> 
> Good? Great!
> 
> Enjoy some Shenanigans(tm)

Jaskier wakes covered head to tail in a chilly layer of frost, making his fur cling unpleasantly to the skin below. He hisses his displeasure and glares down at the culprit—Geralt’s restless legs, kicking the blanket off of them in the middle of the night. He sits up on Geralt’s chest and stares down at his face, tail lashing angrily as he notices the faint blue cast to his lips. Now that he’s paying attention, he can feel Geralt shivering beneath him, the small tremors running through Jaskier’s paws. 

He jumps off of Geralt and twists himself from cat to wolf, twists his limbs longer and his fur thicker, and—most importantly—his mouth bigger. Big enough to grab the wayward blanket and pull it up to Geralt’s chin. His face twitches at the pressure, but thankfully he doesn’t start kicking again. Jaskier flops down at his side, too big to fit under the blanket but hoping that Geralt’s freezing bones can leech some of his warmth anyway.

Geralt squirms around in his sleep and buries his face in Jaskier’s shoulder, huffing as the fur tickles his nose.

_ You’ll suffocate like that,  _ Jaskier thinks. Wishes he could say. But he’d need to shift into a parrot to get his voice close enough to a human’s for Geralt to understand, or else walk all across the clearing they were camping in and change back into a human. Either way would surely wake Geralt fully.

And Jaskier doesn’t want to wake Geralt. Not when he’s finally getting enough sleep.

So instead he lowers his head to his paws and keeps one ear turned to the sound of Geralt’s breathing. Considering he has his face buried in a massive layer of fur, Jaskier is shocked that it isn't more labored.

Honestly, he’s shocked that Geralt hasn’t died in his sleep long before now, considering how much of a death wish he seems to have.

And considering how much the world wants to kill him, he amends, glaring at the frost-covered ground. Winter is whispering through the air, painting itself over the fallen leaves and rustling the bones of the trees above them. And they’re only halfway through Brokilon. They’re only halfway through, and even with their combined powers, it’ll take another month to traverse the rest. 

A month into winter. And even when they’re on the other side, even when warm inns and proper beds are within reach, Geralt will have to stay in Brokilon while Jaskier flies to Triss for help. Jaskier can’t take him with him, not near so many towns and cities. Not with so many opportunities for Geralt’s curse to activate and send him screaming to the ground. No, Jaskier will need to go alone.

He’ll need to leave his brother behind, after at least a month of freezing.

That is, if Geralt isn’t already—

Jaskier growls at that thought, digging his claws into the ground. Geralt won’t die. He won’t  _ let  _ Geralt die. Even if this is the worst winter the Continent has ever seen, even if he needs to turn into a bear and carry Geralt the rest of the way, even if he needs to rip the Ban Ard’s doors off their hinges and demand they teach him necromancy, he will not let Geralt grow cold in the ground. Not while there’s still air in his lungs and magic in his veins.

He’s lived too long with no family to give up any part of it now.

“What’re you growling at?”

Geralt’s voice is thick with sleep, and he stifles a yawn against Jaskier’s fur. Jaskier grits his teeth. Here he was, so determined not to wake Geralt up, and he went and did it anyway. _ Great job, Jask. _

“Something wrong?” Geralt asks, shifting as though to get up. Jaskier thumps his tail twice, their agreed-upon signal for  _ no.  _ Geralt settles back down, blinking up at the sky.

“Getting lighter. Sun’ll be rising soon,” he says. “We should pack up. Get moving.” 

Jaskier huffs, but stretches and climbs to his feet anyway. Once Geralt has it in his mind to wake, there’s nothing in the world that will put him back to sleep. Jaskier should know. He’s tried often enough.

Geralt rolls out his shoulders as he stands, shivering in the cold winter air. He stumbles over to their smouldering campfire, adding a few large sticks and poking at it to encourage the coals to catch. Then he settles down with half of a roasted rabbit, cooked last night shortly after Jaskier caught it. He offers Jaskier the other half, and Jaskier takes it gratefully, crunching it down with a few snaps of his jaws. He  _ can  _ eat raw meat in this form, but that doesn’t mean he likes it. 

Wolf teeth to catch food, human hands to cook it. They make a good team. He focuses on that, and ignores the ever-furious part of himself that wants to sit next to Geralt as a human, to bump shoulders with him and ruffle his hair and offer a fucking  _ word of comfort for the gods’ sakes— _

He licks the rabbit meat from between his teeth and pushes that rage down. He doesn’t want to get angry around Geralt, not when he’s the only lifeline to the world that Geralt has, and certainly not while he’s in the form of a giant, snarling beast. So he’ll lock it away for now. Save it. 

And that way, when he sees Mother—no, when he sees  _ Visenna  _ again, he won’t hesitate to close his jaws around her neck. Won’t even give her the chance to flick another spell off her fingers. Won’t let her back into his head, won’t let her hurt Geralt again. Break all of her curses, past and present and future.

Easy.

He rises off his haunches and begins circling the campfire, gazing off into the woods. Now that he’s eaten, and woken up a bit, he finds himself just as eager to travel as Geralt. Burn away the miles beneath his legs, get them both that much closer to safety. Geralt laughs softly, the juice from the rabbit meat running down his chin.

Jaskier considers licking it off. Wonders how bad his breath is, how much it would gross Geralt out. Quite bad and a decent bit, most likely. But is it worth getting flung into the air by a retaliatory tree branch?

Geralt wipes it away with the back of his hand before he can make his decision.

“With all that pacing, you’d better not start whining when your legs hurt three miles in.”

Jaskier is  _ just  _ about to turn into a bird to demonstrate that legs don’t matter when you can shed those muscles for wings, when the air...shifts. There’s not a better word to describe it. One moment, it’s a boring, chilly morning, and the next the wind is singing with something that makes the fur on Jaskier’s spine stand straight on edge.

_ Chaos.  _ And not his, or Geralt’s. It feels a bit more similar to Triss’s sorcery, or Tissaia’s, when they choose to put away their druidic magic for the carefully cultivated magic of Aretuza. His ears perk up. Maybe they don’t need to travel all the way to the edge of the forest. Maybe somehow, miraculously, their sisters discovered that they need help.

Except, of course, they aren’t that lucky.

The magic—the  _ portal,  _ Jaskier can see that now—pulses and swirls, and before the bodies even fully materialize, Geralt is  _ screaming. _

He hits the ground mere inches from the fire, writhing in pain, eyes rolling madly in his head. Jaskier snarls, charging towards the portal with snapping teeth, not thinking of anything but driving the interlopers away, getting them outside the radius of Geralt’s curse.

He’s met with a raised sword, flying towards his head very fast.

Before he can so much as flinch back, or dodge, or close his eyes and pray Geralt will make it out of this alive, Geralt screams  _ again,  _ and this time the forest listens. The trees creak around them, bending to his aid, to his cry for help. All together, they sound almost like the breath of some great creature, some singular consciousness. The sword is yanked backward—no,  _ upward— _ with a startled yelp, the branches snatching away the interlopers before Jaskier can even get a good look at them. 

Wherever they wind up, it’s out of the curse’s radius, for Geralt falls still and silent, his chest heaving as he attempts to calm himself. Jaskier slinks to his side, nosing at his hair. He stinks of pain and fear.

“M’alright,” Geralt mumbles, though it’s clear that the agony has sapped every bit of his energy. His voice is sluggish, as are his movements as he raises a hand to bury it in Jaskier’s fur. “R’you?”

Jaskier hits the ground once with his paw.  _ Yes. _

“Good. M’glad. Otherwise, would’ve killed them and I...didn’t. Don’t think.”

Jaskier cranes his head up. Far above them, one pair of legs is kicking wildly. Another is limp. He swallows. Hopes that their owner is just unconscious, not dead. Geralt doesn’t need another grave to carry in his heart, another broach on his sword.

And also, a random stranger shouldn’t lose their life just because they accidentally hurt his brother. Right. No matter how tempting it is to fly up there and claw out their throats himself, seeing Geralt this weak.

He twists himself into the shape of a finch, ruffling out his feathers and resisting the urge to preen Geralt’s messy hair.

“Checking on them?” Geralt asks, pulling himself into a seated position. He sways back and forth, clearly on the verge of toppling right back to the ground. Jaskier levels him with—he hopes—an unimpressed look.

“I’m  _ fine,”  _ Geralt insists, leaning back against a log. “Just tired.” 

Jaskier flits over to the bedroll, landing on it and cheeping pointedly.

“I’m not gonna  _ sleep  _ while you’re talking to strange mages,” Geralt says, stifling a yawn. “Also, what if I drop them?”

...fair enough. Jaskier sighs, as much as he can in his current form, and takes to the air. 

Said strange mages turn out to be a man and a woman—the man kicking and swearing up a storm, the woman hanging limply in the branches, softly snoring. Not dead, then. Not even unconscious. Just...asleep. Huh.

And then, Jaskier looks closer at the man. And he nearly falls out of the sky in shock. Because between the yellow eyes and white hair and mulish expression…

He catches himself, flits a few branches higher than the two—mages? He doesn’t even  _ know  _ anymore—to make sure he’s out of range of Geralt’s curse, and shifts himself back into a human. It’s disorienting, as always, to find himself with the heavy weight of his lute on his back and his boots on his feet, disorienting to feel his limbs covered with something other than fur or feathers. But he is grateful that his clothes shift with him. Now, more than ever, as... _ not-Geralt’s  _ eyes widen.

“Hey, Ger!” he yells. “Can you time travel, by any chance?”

There’s a pause, followed by a confused “ _ huh?”  _ from the ground below.

“Gonna take that as a no, then,” Jaskier says. “Which is good, because I would never let you hear the end of it, if you could and didn’t tell me.”

“Jaskier, I can explain,” not-Geralt says, still twisting around in the tree branches. 

“Hmm, so you know me,” Jaskier says, leaning down to poke at not-Geralt’s face. “Incredible. Ger-Bear, are you  _ sure  _ you can’t time travel?”

“Don’t  _ call me that— _ what the fuck is going on?”

“Let us down and I’ll tell you,” not-Geralt grumbles. 

“No can do,” Jaskier says, plastering a smile on his face. “You can explain right here, and  _ then  _ we’ll see about letting you down.”

_ Not.  _ No matter how pretty of a tale this stranger spins, Jaskier’s not letting him get anywhere  _ near  _ Geralt.

“Fine,” not-Geralt sighs, finally giving up on his struggling. “Have you ever heard about other universes?”

“Sure? Tissaia’s obsessed with them.”

The coin drops. Before not-Geralt can get another word in, the rest of his explanation connects in Jaskier’s brain.

“Oh  _ wait,  _ are you...are you Geralt from another universe? Is that what this is?”

Not-Geralt nods.

“We were attacked,” he explains. “By this—this mage who became a monster. Stregobor, if you know—”

“I do.” He puts every bit of venom he feels for that man into his voice. He doesn’t hate him quite as hard as he hates Visenna, but it’s a near thing. Visenna, then Stregobor, then everyone else who ever made his brother feel like a monster.

It’s a long fucking list.

“Right,” not-Geralt says, and there’s something soft in his eyes, something pained. “He made himself into a monster. And when we tried to run, Jaskier—my Jaskier—got caught in a portal.”

“And flung to another world,” Jaskier breathes. 

“Many other worlds,” Geralt says. “We’ve been chasing him for...gods, I don’t know how long.”

Jaskier sighs, running his hand through his hair.

“He’s not here,” he says. “I can tell you that much. We haven’t seen another person for—well, for me, three months, now. For Geralt…”

He swallows around the anger.

“For Geralt, it’s been longer,” he says. It comes out more vicious than intended. Not-Geralt frowns, opening his mouth.

“Who’s this then?” Jaskier says before he can speak. This man might claim to be Geralt, but Jaskier still doesn’t trust him with knowledge of the curse. Not when it’s such an easy weapon. Geralt blinks, startled.

“This is Ciri,” he says. Jaskier’s throat gets tight. Oh gods. “You don’t always know who she is, from universe to universe, but she’s my…”

“Child surprise,” Jaskier murmurs. He reaches out with a trembling hand, stroking her hair away from her forehead. His niece. His niece who he’s never met, his niece who his mother  _ stole,  _ who’s suffering just like he suffered—

Not-Geralt sucks in a breath of air, his eyes going wide and horrified.

“Is she dead here?” he asks, sounding like he can’t bear the thought of it. Of course he can’t. He’s her father, and he  _ loves  _ her, and…

“No. No, no, she’s not, just...just give me a second,” Jaskier says, and without another word, he leans back and topples off the branch, twisting himself into a bird mid-air. Because if this is difficult for  _ him,  _ it must be unbearable for Geralt.

He flits to the ground, twisting himself into a wolf as soon as he hits it. Strong and sturdy, easy to cling to. He bounds over to Geralt, who’s still leaning against the log where Jaskier left him. He’s staring at their campfire, tears shining in his eyes.

“I heard,” he says, unnecessarily. “That’s...that’s Ciri up there?”

_ Thump. Yes. _

He closes his eyes. 

“And I—I can’t even—”

_ Can’t see her, talk to her, hold her. _

Jaskier crowds into Geralt’s space and Geralt wraps his arms around him, burying his face in Jaskier’s fur. His shoulders shake with silent sobs. Jaskier drops his muzzle to the crown of his head and tries to quiet his aching, awful heart.

“Sorry,” Geralt sniffs after a few minutes. He pulls back, drawing a hand over his eyes. “Sorry you should be...you should be helping them look for their Jaskier, explaining shit, not dealing with…”

Jaskier bumps his head into Geralt’s chest, knocking the wind out of him.  _ None of that. You first. Always. _

“I’m fine,” Geralt says. He takes a deep breath, scratches his hand over Jaskier’s ears. “Really. I am. Just want to get out of this forest.”

And Jaskier is a poet. He is well-adapted to reading between the lines. He knows that Geralt means so much more than the trees around them.

He huffs, and noses at Geralt’s hair one last time. Then he twists himself back into a bird and flies up to join not-Geralt and Ciri.

Twist. Human again. He kicks his legs in the air and pictures Visenna’s head. 

Not-Geralt is silent and still, biting his lip and staring at Ciri. She shifts in her sleep, mumbling a bit.

“What happened to her?” he asks.

“Visenna,” Jaskier says shortly, kicking the air again. Not-Geralt blinks, confused.

“Visenna,” he repeats.

“Yeah. Guess she decided she wanted to mess up some other kid’s life. Thought that Ciri would make a wonderful daughter. Didn’t much care for Ciri’s say in the matter. Or Geralt’s.”

Not-Geralt looks  _ horrified. _

“I...why would she…?”

“Don’t ask me. I don’t presume to know what goes on in that woman’s head.”

He lived in it for far too long, but he still never learned why she…

Why she hurt him. Geralt.  _ Any  _ of them. He still doesn’t fucking know  _ why. _

He doesn’t think he’ll ever know why.

“But we’ll get Ciri back,” he says. “We’ll get out of Brokilon, and we’ll get Ciri back. I promised Geralt—you?—that when I first found him...wandering here. It’s not a promise I intend to break.”

“You really care about him,” not-Geralt murmurs. “Don’t you?”

“Of course I do?” It comes out as a question. The thought of  _ not  _ caring about Geralt is incomprehensible. “Does...does your version of me not care about you?”

Because if so, he will figure out how to cross universes just to kick his own ass. See if he doesn’t.

“No, no he does. A lot, actually. It’s just,” he sighs heavily. “It’s just that every single other version of us seems to have figured their shit out already.”

“Figured what shit out?” Jaskier asks, confused. Did he and his Jaskier fight or something?

“Just, you know. Falling in love,  _ confessing  _ their love, fucking. All that.”

Jaskier’s brain slams to a halt, falls off its horse, and is promptly run over by the rest of the cavalry. His jaw drops, and he very nearly topples off the tree as nausea slams into his gut like a physical thing.

_ “What the fuck?”  _ Geralt screams from the ground. Jaskier agrees with him.

_ “Fucking?”  _ he shrieks. Not-Geralt blinks at him, baffled, like he doesn’t understand the sheer  _ wrongness  _ of what he just said. “Oh gods, is that...is that  _ acceptable,  _ where you’re from?”

Geralt’s face goes hard as stone.

“Just because we’re two men—” he begins, and Jaskier laughs, high pitched and hysterical.

“I don’t give a shit about that!” he shouts, his voice getting louder and louder. “I quite  _ like  _ men, thanks, but I do  _ not  _ like the idea of  _ fucking my younger brother.” _

Even saying it makes him want to gag.

Not-Geralt looks like Jaskier just punched him in the face.

“Your...brother,” he says slowly. “As in brother-in-arms?”

“ _ No!  _ As in ‘born to the same abusive shithead of a mother!’ As in  _ siblings.” _

“Oh,” not-Geralt says faintly. “Well, I think I’ve figured out how your universe is different then. Besides the shapeshifting, and tree-magic, and...Ciri being kidnapped.”

“You’re...not related?”

“No,” Geralt stammers. “No, no, none of us have been, in the universes I’ve been to. You’re the first ones who are.”

“Ah.” Okay, so the multi-verse is not a whirlwind of incest. Good. Good to know, in case Tissaia ever figures out the sphere conjugator that she’s been working on.

“Yeah,” not-Geralt blinks. “This is. Hmm. This is something.”

Before Jaskier can make fun of him for that oh-so-eloquent response, Ciri jerks in her sleep, thrashing against the tree. 

“Wha’s happen’,” she slurs, and she sounds  _ just  _ like Geralt does when he’s tired. Gods, he needs to pretend that this woman isn’t Ciri, or he’s just gonna start sobbing. “Wh’r we?”

“New universe,” not-Geralt says, keeping his voice calm and light.

“Why’re we tied up?”

“Ah!” Jaskier says. “Yeah, good point. Um,  _ Geralt, can you—!” _

A faint “sorry” from the ground and the tree branches shift around their captives, going from manacles to hammocks. 

“So, that’s the difference?” Ciri asks not-Geralt, reclining back and blinking sleep out of her eyes. “You have tree magic here?”

“Among...other things,” not-Geralt says. “How’re you feeling?”

“Head’s killing me and I think I could sleep for a week, but otherwise good.”

“Good,” not-Geralt nods. “We need to get down to the ground.”

“Um. About that.”

He still doesn’t want to tell them about the curse. Years of seeing the world throw stones and mud at Geralt has made him very wary to hand over any way of hurting him.

“Whatever’s wrong with me here,” not-Geralt says, his voice a soft rumble. “I can handle it. I’m sure he can too.”

“Something’s wrong with you?” Ciri asked.

“I heard screaming when we got here. And then they put us up in the trees and haven’t let me look at him since. Not a hard conclusion.”

Jaskier takes a deep breath. Straightens his spine.

“You don’t understand—” he starts.

The air shifts again.

Or not. It doesn’t shift. That would be too blithe of a description. 

It tears in half.

It turns honest-to-gods  _ orange,  _ like a sunset but sickly, wrong and rotten to its core. And just above them, in the middle of the clearing, the orange is broken by a crevice of pure black, like the yawning void of space, lung-chilling and heart-freezing.

A leg slams to the ground. Another. Another.

And just when Jaskier’s thinking  _ this is it, this is the most terrified I have ever been and will ever be,  _ a scream shatters the air into even smaller pieces.

_ Fuck.  _ Oh gods, oh  _ fuck,  _ **_no._ **

“You said that thing used to be a person?” he asks, grasping his tree branch with white knuckles.

“Yeah,” not-Geralt says. He’s clinging to a—bit of jewelry? Odd. “Why does that matter?”

Jaskier swallows. And this is it.  _ This  _ is actually the most terrified he’s ever been. Amazing what a few seconds will do.

“Cause that’s what’s wrong with Geralt, here,” he says, and leans forward. “He can’t go near people.”

And then he falls and he twists, not into a finch this time, but into the biggest hawk he knows of, all sharp talons. He knows, as he soars towards the monster taller than the trees, than he won’t be able to beat it. Won’t even be able to seriously hurt it. Will likely just wind up on the ground, as a pile of feathers.

But he might distract it long enough to get it away from Geralt. And that’s all that matters.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a shimmer in the air. Ciri has stood up in her hammock of branches, and is reaching out for the monster’s portal. A thin line of black energy snakes down from it, sucked into her palm. But he can’t stop to wonder what her purpose is, can’t even watch her work for more than a second.

Geralt is still screaming.

Jaskier caws and dives for the monster, talons posed to strike.

But it’s not—

It’s not  _ real. _

Not physical. 

It’s skin melts away beneath his talons, and they’re left scratching at shadows, trying desperately to make contact. Below, on the ground, he can see Geralt trying desperately to crawl away from the monster’s talons. But he’s slow, muscles jittering with pain, he’ll never be able to make it fifty feet—

“Get  _ away!”  _ not-Geralt screams as he swipes again. “You can’t fight it, Jaskier!”

_ Fucking watch me. _

Another swipe, another miss. He hisses, puffing up his feathers as he scans the shadowy maw of the thing for an eye to peck at.

Another swipe. Another miss.

And then the shadows solidify around him, the air going from dream to reality in an instant. He shrieks as the monster's flesh closes around his legs, trapping him like a fish in a net. One of its legs lifts off the ground, almost lazily, hovering in the air next to him. And he knows it won’t just be a shadow when it strikes.

There’s another scream from below. Of agony, yes, but also of fury, horror, sheer  _ defiance. _

And the trees listen.

They explode inward, their branches arcing like the monster’s legs, aiming for the thing’s heart. It shrieks in protest as the wood pierces its skin, a shriek that grinds into Jaskier’s marrow, his heart, every last one of his worst memories. He can swear that he sees Visenna, dancing in the monster’s skin, smiling sugary-sweet. He can swear that he hears her voice in his ear, telling him to be good, to stay a human, to shuck the poison from his petals.

The monster’s flesh melts away from his legs and he lets himself fall, tumbling gracelessly through the shadows. He can swear he hears his own voice, screaming and sobbing in the forest on his first day of freedom. Can swear he feels the weight of the world, of his brother’s life, pressing down on his shoulders like iron chains.

And then he’s out and falling through the open air. He snaps open his wings and soars down to land next to Geralt.

He’s dragged himself to his knees, arms spread and shaking, sweat and tears pouring down his face as he bends the trees to his wishes. But they aren’t  _ doing _ anything, not anymore. The monster crouches unharmed, all smoke and ash, waiting for Geralt to tire himself out. 

Because Geralt  _ will  _ tire himself out. And when he does, the trees will bend back to their natural shape. 

Jaskier considers shifting into a bear, grabbing Geralt, and  _ running.  _ Getting them out of here, getting Geralt away from the pain. Leaving Ciri and not-Geralt to their fate.

But Geralt would never forgive him for letting any version of Ciri die.

So he does what he hasn’t allowed himself for three months now. He twists himself human and drops to his knees next to his brother.

The pain doesn’t seem to get worse. That’s something. If anything, Geralt’s face seems to relax as he takes Jaskier in.

“Dunno how long I can hold it,” he gasps. A drop of blood slides down his chin as he speaks, followed by another, and another, slipping from the corners of his mouth. Jaskier hopes—and gods, it’s fucked up, that he’s  _ hoping _ this—that Geralt has just bitten his tongue.

“Longer with me,” Jaskier says, holding out his hand. It’s something they’ve done before, one particularly difficult monster hunts. Chained their chaos together so that Geralt can fight longer.

Geralt blinks at him. And  _ shit,  _ his tears aren’t just shining orange in the uneasy light. They’re red. Faintly red, but red. He’s crying blood.

Visenna’s curse was originally made to turn wolves away from human settlements, give them a taste of pain so that they don’t get a taste of blood. Jaskier had never considered that it would go further than that, that perhaps Visenna acknowledged that there were wolves too stubborn or too hungry to be deterred by agony. 

He wishes he had, as Geralt’s cheeks grow redder and redder, as he sways back and forth like a tree in a thunderstorm.

“Not hands,” Geralt says at last. He leans forward and tugs Jaskier into a hug. “This.”

He’s burning hotter than a man sick with fever, but he shivers against Jaskier, tiny tremors running down his spine. Jaskier closes his eyes and clings back, feeling Geralt’s lungs rise and fall beneath his palms. Hugging him for the first time in months.

For the last time ever.

“Okay,” he whispers, and he lets go of his chaos, lets Geralt take it and hold it and make it his own. “I’ve got you.”

Above them, more trees snap towards the center of the clearing. The monster shrieks with indignation. The portal whirls louder and louder, and Jaskier can only pray that they’re giving Ciri enough time to escape.

And then he feels something descend. Something surrounds then,  _ becomes  _ them, if only for a moment. Jaskier presses Geralt’s head into his shoulder, keeping him from looking. He cracks his own eyes open.

They’re surrounded by shadow.

It undulates around them, freezing and unforgiving, and Jaskier keeps his lips pressed tight so he doesn’t whimper. He can feel something— _ someone— _ watching them. Considering them. Its presence passes over their arms, their legs, dips into their hearts and examines them like a chef examining pieces of fresh fruit. It runs its consciousness over Jaskier’s lute, still strapped to his back now that he’s twisted himself human.

Music fills the space around them. Music, and the sense of  _ freedom,  _ fierce and happy and sparkling. Jaskier remembers this tune. It was the first song he’d ever played for an audience, at Oxenfurt. The first time he felt like he was more than his mother’s son.

The shadows draw back, pulling off of them like a cast-off cloak.

Above them, the monster screeches again, a sound that chills the air in Jaskier’s lungs, and then it flings itself upwards, back through the portal.

He only gets a moment to marvel that they’re alive, before Geralt goes entirely limp against him. An instant later, he’s thrashing.

_ Shit. _

Jaskier twists himself into a wolf, but it doesn’t  _ do  _ anything. Geralt just keeps convulsing, eyes bugging out of his skull, their whites red with blood. More blood spills out of his ears, streaming through his white hair and painting it with gore. Jaskier  _ howls,  _ sniffing desperately at Geralt’s face for some clue of what’s happening, but all he gets is  _ pain-fear-death— _

“Somnos.”

Geralt goes still beneath him and he spins around to see not-Geralt standing there, face grim, fingers pulled into the familiar sign for sleep.

“He needs a mage,” not-Geralt says, staring down at himself with an unreadable expression. 

Jaskier twists himself human.

“No  _ fucking shit,”  _ he snarls. “Got one handy? Maybe one that you brought into this world, along with the interdimensional  _ monster?” _

Not-Geralt winces. Behind him stands Ciri, horror painted plainly across her face.

“No,” not-Geralt admits. “Are there none around here?”

“We are in the  _ middle  _ of Brokilon  _ shitting  _ Forest.  _ No,  _ there isn’t a mage around here. If there was, my brother wouldn’t still be  _ fucking cursed!” _

The last few words come out broken around the edges, like bits of snapped bone. Not-Geralt ducks his head.

“What happened to him?” Ciri whispers.

And it doesn’t matter now, does it? It doesn’t matter if he keeps this secret, not if Geralt’s—

Geralt’s—

“Visenna found—well,  _ you,  _ somehow. Ciri. Decided she’d make a good daughter. Took her. Geralt tracked them down, tried to get Ciri away from her. But she didn’t—she didn’t want to let her go, and she—”

He breathes. Closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the stricken looks on their faces.

“This spell is meant for animals,” he says. “Predators. Wolves, bears, mountain lions who have a taste for human blood. Visenna always said it was kinder. Better than killing them. Cast it on an animal or—or on a  _ person— _ and they feel pain when they get within a fifty foot radius of any human.”

He wraps his arms around himself.

“She didn’t want Geralt coming near her,” he says. “Didn’t want him claiming  _ her  _ daughter. And she decided that  _ this,  _ this horrible  _ fucking  _ curse, cutting him off from the rest of the world...she decided that  _ this  _ would be kinder than killing him.”

Ciri swears under her breath. When Jaskier opens his eyes, there are tears in hers. 

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. She looks down at Geralt, and the sheer helplessness in her eyes is enough to make it sink in. Geralt is dying. Geralt is dying, slow, in pain, bleeding into himself.

“I wish there was something—” she begins. And then she stops. Clenches her hands into fists. 

“There  _ is  _ something I can do,” she says. She takes a deep breath, and raises her hands towards the still open portal.

“You said there are no mages in Brokilon,” she says. “But do you know of any,  _ any  _ at all with healing magic?”

“Y-yeah,” stammers Jaskier, startled back into hope. “Our sister, Triss, she lives in Vizima.”

“Your...sister. Both of you,” Ciri says slowly. Not-Geralt throws his hands up in the air.

“How many siblings do you  _ have?”  _ he growls.

“Four, that I know of.”

“Nevermind,” Ciri says, darting a glance at Not-Geralt that screams they'll be having a chat later. “I was only going to draw enough energy from this portal to make my  _ own  _ portal to the next world, but I should be able to get you two to Vizima easy enough.”

Jaskier swallows back the lump in his throat. Tears burn in the back of his eyes.

They might be okay.  _ Geralt  _ might be okay.

He tries his best to push his other fears out of his mind. That Geralt might have flown out of his body to escape the pain, that he might not ever come back. That the blood from his ears means that his hearing has gone, that the blood from his eyes has taken his sight. That Triss might try as hard as she can to save his life, and he might die anyway, in even more pain.

He has to try. Has to act like Geralt will survive, lest he kill him with hopelessness.

“Can you carry him?” Ciri asks, staring at a spot near the blown-out campfire. A portal whirls into existence. Jaskier can smell Triss’s workshop on the other side of it, all herbs and chaos and warmth.

He smirks at the question, twisting himself into a bear and hoisting Geralt up in his arms. He ignores the way Geralt’s limbs swing limply in the air, ignores the heat still pouring off of him.

He will live. Jaskier will  _ make  _ him live.

“Fair enough,” Ciri says. “Then this is where we part ways.”

“I’m sorry,” Not-Geralt says. “For coming into your world like this.”

Jaskier inclines his head, holding Geralt against his chest. And then he takes a deep breath, and steps into the portal.


End file.
